Obama stumbles over nominations

Two of President Obama’s nominees for critical government jobs have withdrawn their names from consideration because of problems with their taxes, Christina Bellantoni is reporting.

Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle removed himself from consideration for secretary of Health and Human Services, and Nancy Kilfer dropped out as chief performance officer, a new position aimed at rooting out wasteful spending and inefficiencies in the federal budget.

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Obama blamed himself for the nominees’ failures. “Did I screw up? Absolutely,” he told NBC. “I’m willing to take my lumps, that’s part of the job.”

The nominees’ withdrawals over tax problems have tainted Obama’s efforts to create a drama-free administration.

Well, all of this isn’t really “drama.” It’s more like a comedy … of errors. A sad little comedy of errors.

We’ve seen this before — leaders in politics and business getting into trouble because they owe thousands of dollars in Social Security, income and property taxes. The problem is they make too much money. We should pay them less — for their own good.

Nancy Kilfer was going to be the chief performance officer, and the first thing she does is remove herself because of her tax problems. Now that’s performance for you!

Daschle looked like a shoo-in for health secretary — even the Republicans liked him. Don’t count on them doing that again.

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About the Author

Carleton Bryant is the assistant managing editor for strategic planning and development/special projects for The Washington Times. He previously served as The Times’ Metropolitan desk editor, Features desk editor and an assistant National desk editor, as well as a National and Metropolitan reporter. He currently writes a humor blog and weekly humor column — both titled “Out of Context” — ...